“Prayer demands that we act, and that–having acted in accordance with our leading in prayer–we bear the consequences of our acts, even when we cannot foresee all that they are to cost.” — Douglas V. Steere, Dimensions of Prayer, p. 84AT HOME, CURRENTLY READING: “The Paying Guests,” by Sarah Waters

After all the go-go goings defining this long season of Pentecost, I am relishing moments of holy leisure today, the guilt-free sort that arrive on wings of winter chill.

It’s no small miracle the difference a few days can make to one’s priorities and state of mind. Why all autumn long, prior to knowing that there was such a thing as an “ARCTIC BLAST” (“AB”), I’ve been cocooned in an Indian Summer insouciance, preparing the garden for future summers rather than getting ready for the certain reality of a winter that — let’s face it — could have happened anytime.

I put off decision-making on how best to winterize our fountain — whether to store it or keep it operating with a heater — in favor of reworking and expanding large sections of the garden. Rather than taking time to ensure I had paper tape to protect trees most susceptible to sun scald, I instead focused on editing plant material — adding, and relocating plants within my garden… passing along other plants that needed more spacious digs.

So to read how AB ended up catching me off guard could surprise no one… but maybe myself. The day after AB arrived, the fountain was still operating…without its needed heater. Tree trunks of those normally wrapped were still bare. And the most prolific tomato plant I’ve ever been privileged to nurture was loaded with hundreds of little green tomatoes… just waiting for someone to take note… and pick, pick, pick.

The gardener shapes the garden and vice versa, but both are shaped by seasonal changes. Take this winter freeze, for instance. Before this, I’d never considered how effective winter can be at making things happen. When a freeze means do or die, it’s time to do. Which in my garden meant that the fountain heater finally got installed. The trees got taped. And a few hours before temperatures dived below thirty-two degrees, my husband and I picked too-many-to-count little green tomatoes, fifty of which have already ripened.

Winter makes things happen in other ways, too, though often, in less perceptible ways. In an out of the garden, new growth occurs below the surface of life; as roots develop for spring growth within the cold, dark soil, something analogous goes on in the life of this gardener, too, as I’m snuggled into some warm and light-infused spot of my lovely home. Like no other season of the year, winter invites me to settle in and get still, it offers me creative space to catch my breath, to rest my tired body and recharge my spirit, to ponder life and my response to life, often with the aid of a good novel or fine film in front of me.

It also gives me time to ponder future projects I may one day undertake. Last January, my bathroom remodel was the stuff of wintertime day dreams. I devoted time to study of the space. I took measurements. I made lists of features that I’d like to have in my new bathroom. I considered the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos of many remodeled bathrooms that appealed to me. I probably overdosed on remodeled bathrooms designed by Sarah Richardson. But only after pondering all of my wishes and restraints for a very long time did I begin to sketch out possible floor plans. It took weeks to come up with one I was ready to develop further, to invest time needed to selecting materials and fixtures. Marble tile for the floor. Ceramic for the tile wainscoting. Shimmery glass mosaics for the upper half of the shower. Calcutta Gold Quartzite for the countertop. A large vessel tub. Pendant lights.

Buy why bother with words when I can show you the ‘before’ and ‘after’ so easily with photos?

Before.

And after.

And a few more, for good measure.

Most see it as an amazing transformation. But then, how could it be otherwise? It’s always seems to be a step in the right direction wherever light illumines space and whenever narrow views grow to be more opened. What’s true for room design holds true for life in the garden and, most importantly, the life of this gardener, too.

Though, sometimes, I do wonder at all the changes that have taken place within me over the span of my adult life. Changes in attitude. Perspective. Philosophy. Changes that have occurred in my spiritual life and in religious affiliation. My choice in films and novels. My preference in how I furnish my home and dress myself. My taste in food. How I once loved eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger…

Why, even the way I perceive myself has changed. Six years ago, I would never have considered calling myself a gardener, though I did garden a fair amount. So who can say how and when it happened,… I only know that today, I refer to myself as a gardener. And that life as a gardener shapes my view of the world.

These inward personal changes cannot be documented with the ease of ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos, though they live within me nevertheless…which reminds me that “To pray is to change.” Like all the other changes that have slowly shaped my present identity, I cannot pinpoint where I first read…and absorbed…these words. I only know that the saying feels true to my experience.

I pray.

I act.

My actions shape my prayers and my prayers, in turn, shape my actions… until the two blur to become one… and my prayer becomes my action.

In other words, as I often like to say, my life is my prayer. But unlike Douglas V. Steer, I do not know whether I believe that my prayer… or my life… can really tip the cosmic balance (p. 69 of Dimensions of Prayer) of what will occur without either my prayers or my life.

But who can say what impact our words or deeds might have on the lives of others?

Who can say whether or not that maybe we all tip the balance a little every day?

I only know that, today, I’ve settled into sweater weather. And that at certain times in my life, I have felt the warmth of prayers spoken on my behalf as much as I do the warmth of this coral-colored, cotton sweater that, today, covers my arms and heart.

Sweater weather! How grateful I am to be within your seasonal embrace.

And though I’m somewhat ashamed in admitting my truth, I realize I always draw boundaries tighter when my husband leaves town — as he did this week. Maybe it’s a carryover from helping raise four children. With one of us away, the other always tightened focus to keep a busy two-parent home afloat.

However, having a smaller world view is also, for better or worse, part of who I am; I tend to lavishly love the ones I’m with – when in Texas, it was friends; now that I’m home, it’s family. Moreover, I attempt to live free of what will steal my peace. For example, I avoid violent films because viewing them robs me of an ability to sleep – for a long time. I can still remember in full gory detail a Dirty Harry film I saw in my late teens. And now, without nudge to prompt them, my thoughts pull up the year I became a teen, when I saw Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood at the drive-in theater with my family. Just writing the words of the film’s title flash up a slicer scene I shiver to remember.

So while I’m a dreamer, maybe it’s less by nature than nurture. Maybe it’s what the world has made of me, the way I’ve learned to cope and live within a broken world. I tell myself I don’t live life with my head buried in the sand but rather high up in the clouds — dreaming all sorts of good dreams of a better world – one full of beauty and truth and love. But perhaps I’m kidding myself; and it’s only silly semantics.

So this week, while my radius didn’t reach as far as Libya, it did extend a mile uptown to embrace not only my new home but more importantly, my new not yet two-month old granddaughter who suffers from gut-wrenching colic. Poor Reese Caroline — when she draws in her legs to cradle her belly. She hurts without knowing the reasons why. I wonder — is she frightened too? And pity her mother who tries to comfort her without knowing how to offer relief – this time; because this time will not be like last time or the time before that.

This little girl cannot sleep by herself for pain and sometimes cannot eat without pain. Medications have lessened the hurt without eliminating it. Sometimes her special sensitive diet helps. But there are no magic tricks left in the doctor’s bag – the only thing that seems to consistently work is never putting the baby down. The photo above was last Monday’s “Kodak Moment”, when Kara shared her joy with family of a baby FINALLY sleeping solo. Yet ultimately, I know, in spite of all the love and support my daughter has in the world in and outside her walls, Kara has to feel terribly alone in this. Surely she must feel like it’s her and Reese braving the battle against colic, with the rest of us standing somewhere on the sidelines. Helping the best we can – waiting until the baby’s digestive system matures.

So. I didn’t pray for Libya this week but I did for little Reese. And I sat with her to give my daughter a break from the scary front-lines of motherhood. And though I was not the one my granddaughter wanted, I rocked her in my arms anyway. Sometimes I sat in the rocker and other times I rocked her walking laps around the house. And when walking alone didn’t work, I sang a silly little made-up song that seemed to bring comfort.

God love you. God love you. God love you, Reese Caroline.

I sang it over and over and over until ten or twelve laps around, Reese stopped crying to listen. Until quiet dissolved into peace. And drowsy eyelids fluttered shut. Small facial features relaxed. And relief came for both of us.

This morning, as I thought about Libya, I felt small. I felt small for having my mile-wide radius. I felt small for not realizing how the Libyan people were living in a colicky world too — for surely they too draw up their legs in bunkered down homes that no longer feel safe. I felt small in thinking how violence in their real world – rather than one made of imagination viewed with the price of admission — had rocked away their sense of peace and well-being. Like any on the front-lines fighting colic, I imagine the Libyan people too are suffering from a lack of precious sleep.

Oh Libya! I know you must feel terribly alone now. How I long to reach out my arms to bind and comfort you, even by singing off-key my small silly song: God love you. God love you. God love you, little Libya. And how I wish I could whisper softly in your ear that it will be all better soon, once your system for life matures. Yes, I do. I really do.

It’s a pity I had no time to unpack the week’s “unforgettable” moments.

Instead, my off-line journal holds four disjointed pages of thoughts, when in a normal week there would be twenty-one packed full of “don’t-wish-to-forget” or “wish-I-could-but-can’t forget” moments. But all that deeper reflection must come later — because I want to get down everything I can about this miraculous, love-sloshed week.

Like last night’s expressions of love that came by way of a fancy steakhouse downtown, in celebration of my future daughter-in-law Amy’s twenty-fourth birthday. If only I’d had the presence of mind to snap Amy’s photo. But perhaps with these words, I’ll remember how especially pretty she looked in her evening finery — how she bubbled with joy.

And like every single minute since last Saturday, thirteen minutes after Noon — as I’ve expressed and been privileged to witness other’s countless expressions of love to our family’s newborn parents and child — daughter Kara, son-in-law Joe and granddaughter, Reese Caroline.

Sometimes the love expressed — like those that came out of dark, sleep-deprived moments in the middle of the night as I jarred myself awake to help a very tired and sore new mother and child — seemed more like expressing oil from olives. Though I’m told there is no “second press” of olives — that all olive oil comes from the first pressing — at times, this week, I felt as though my expressing of love came by a second and third pressing — until I thought I had nothing else to give. But most the time, my love rose boundless to the surface like bubbles in a just opened bottle of champagne. Whether bubbly or hard-pressed, neither vintage of love was better as both came from the same source. Yet it amazes me that when it comes to love, when we think we have nothing else to give, we’re wrong.

But whether my own or others it makes no difference — deep expressions of love leave me weepy. So forgive me while I slosh as I wonder in words — on a night, mind you, when I should be sleeping, since I’ve come home to grant space to others who wish to express love to my newborns –why we are so stingy with our love? Why do we do things for any reason other than love? Why is it that we too often do things merely out of a sense of obligation? What weight does fulfilling an obligation carry — especially in eternity?

Living this week, as I have in a celebratory bubble of love, I see that only what we do out of love really and truly matters. And as I write this, I see that everything we do traces back to love of someone or something. And though I confess to not thinking so clearly in my sleep-deprived state, it seems we go astray those times when our love of things gets in the way of our love of people — whether the things are money or pride or whatever. The ‘right thing” is always to love someone rather than something. And even when the something is grandiose, like a desire for world peace, even then there should be people and their well-being standing behind it.

This old-song of Jackie DeShannon’s makes a good everyday prayer in my sleep-deprived mind tonight. And with it, I’m tucking myself back in to bed.